Vancouver residents find two mutilated cats, fear more

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VANCOUVER, Wash. - After discovering two bodies of mutilated cats in the past week, people on Vancouver's east side are worried someone is intentionally targeting their pets.

According to neighbors, the mutilations have happened two summers in a row, and at a recent neighborhood association meeting more stories about mutilated cats came up. Some of those incidents, police and animal control say, were animal attacks, not the work of a serial cat killer.

A resident found one of the cat bodies Saturday - just the back end of the cat only - on Southeast 20th Street. The head was missing. The death of the cat appeared to be intentional, because the cut was clean, not like it would have been if it had been hit by a car or attacked by another animal.

Neighbors found the other mutilated cat a few days earlier in the Fisher's Landing neighborhood. Pet owners say they are worried about someone coming after their animals, and they're especially disturbed by where the cats were found.

"Someone's deliberately placing them in places where people will find (them)," said one pet owner who did not want to be identified for fear her pets would be targeted. "Last summer there was one we just recently heard about that was decapitated in this park and just left out for someone to find."

Vancouver police, animal control and the folks at the humane society said the best way to protect your cat is to keep it indoors. Also, make sure it has identification such as a license tag on its collar or a microchip.

Vancouver police and animal control work together to investigate cases of animal cruelty. They haven't gotten an official report on the recent two possible cases. They want to remind residents that if they think there's a problem they have to let them know.